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The Return of the Nightingale University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana English Faculty Publications English Winter 2007 The Return of the Nightingale James C. McKusick University of Montana - Missoula, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/eng_pubs Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation McKusick, James C., "The Return of the Nightingale" (2007). English Faculty Publications. 16. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/eng_pubs/16 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the English at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at University of Montana. For more information, please contact [email protected]. .---------------------------- The Return of the Nightingale James C. McKusick University of Montana In Ecological Literary Criticism (1994), Karl Kroeber ad­ The nightingale that often appears in Romantic poetry vocated a bold new approach to the study of literature. More is more than a literary motif. It is, to begin with, a migratory than just another routine method of textual analysis, ecologi­ Old World bird of the thrush family (turdidae), renowned cal literary criticism seeks to bridge the gap between the nat­ throughout the world and literature, for its remarkable sing­ ural sciences and the humanities. Such an approach ing. The common nightingale of England and Western Eu­ incorporates theoretical advances in the science of environ­ rope, known in Linnaean terminology as Luscinia mental biology while it adapts to the changing social and po­ megarhynchos, is a small and inconspicuous bird, about 61/2 litical circumstances of contemporary criticism. In Karl inches long, with reddish-brown coloring on its upper body, Kroeber's view, an ecologically oriented literary criticism and grayish-brown below. It migrates to Africa for the winter, "seizes opportunities offered by recent biological research to returning to England in mid-April. Only the male sings, and make humanistic studies more socially responsible" (1). only during the breeding season, at any time of day or night. Kroeber's landmark book was the first of several important The female bird is silent, but she plays an active role in the studies that gave rise to ecocriticism as a distinctive literary social realm of nightingales because she chooses a mate on theory for the twenty-first century. the basis of his singing. Although the male is the singer, the female nightingale exerts the sexual power; the male pro­ poses, and she disposes. The most memorable chapters of Kroeber's book were concerned with the close reading of Romantic poems from In ancient Greek and Roman poetry, however, the an ecological point of view. His reading of Wordsworth's nightingale was virtually always personified as a female "Lines Written in Early Spring" best exemplifies what this ap­ singer, and the identification of the nightingale with the fe­ proach can accomplish. Often dismissed as a dogmatic dis­ male gender has been stable throughout literary history, play of ingenuous nature-worship, this poem nevertheless stubbornly at variance with the facts. From Homer and Aes­ reveals an unsuspected thematic complexity in its portrayal chylus through Sappho and Virgil, all the way to Milton and of the relationship between nature and human society. Ac­ Keats, the nightingale has been personified as a beautiful, cording to Kroeber, the poem "challenges our learned cul­ melancholy, and often seductive female presence. In the Od­ tural presupposition that human consciousness alienates us yssey, Homer compares Penelope to Philomela, an unfortu­ from physical nature" ( 45). Stressing the hypothetical, ques­ nate woman who was transformed by Zeus into a nightingale tioning tone of the poem, Kroeber scrutinizes its enigmatic out of pity for her sad plight. The same story is recounted by last lines: "Have I not reason to lament I What man has many Classical poets, memorably by Ovid, who relates a de­ made of man?" He suggests that these lines refer not only to tailed version of the myth in Metam01phoses, Book 4. This ver­ the stubborn persistence of social injustice, but also to the sion of the myth was the most influential upon later poets. way that our "self-injuries may be rooted in a miseducation of ourselves away from linkages through pleasure with benefi­ According to Ovid, Philomela, on the way to visit her cent natural processes" ( 45). In this way, the poem encour­ sister Procne, was taken into a remote wood and raped by ages readers to adopt an essentially ecological understanding Tereus, King of Thrace and Procne's husband. The evil Te­ of their relation to the natural world. Kroeber's ecological reus then cuts out Philomela's tongue to silence her, and approach to the reading of poetry appears especially ground­ confines her in a remote forest dwelling. While confined, breaking and visionary in light of the environmental con­ Philomela weaves her story into a tapestry and sends it to her cerns that have come to pose a distinct threat to the ultimate sister Procne, who sets her free. The two sisters return to survival of humankind. Thrace, and tale a terrible revenge on Tereus by killing his son, Itys, and serving him to his father in a cannibal stew. This essay will examine the perennial poetic theme of When he realizes what Procne and Philomela have done, Te­ the nightingale from an ecocritical perspective, informed by reus attacks them with an axe; but Zeus chooses intervenes Kroeber's insightful methods of ecological close reading. I and turns them all into birds: Tereus into a hoopoe, Procne am interested in the nightingale, not only as a literary topos, into a nightingale, Philomela into a swallow, and Itys into a or commonplace, but also as a biological organism that goldfinch. thrives in a specific habitat. Ecological literary criticism de­ votes special attention to the relation of poetry to actual Ovid's ending of the tale moves outside the main­ places, and to actual biotic communities - real birds singing stream since he turns Philomela into a swallow. In most in real trees. To what extent does the nightingale topos em­ other versions of the myth, Philomela is turned into a night­ body the lived experience of poets listening to the song of an ingale; and throughout literary history, the song of the night­ actual bird? ingale has been regarded as an expression of Philomela's sad 34 plight - her story of being raped, taken prisoner, having her public preferment and rumored affection for Ralegh lends tongue cut out by her captor; and her redemption through the poem a latent erotic theme. Although the nightingale in art, the weaving of a tapestry, the feature of the tale that most this poem is masculine, the bird is presented as a seducer, appealed to Homer. the Queen's forbidden lover. The erotic dimension of the nightingale theme will persist through many Romantic Throughout Classical literary tradition, the nightingale retellings. is associated with Philomela, and the burden of her song is her loss of voice, and her cruel betrayal by a man whom she In ancient Greek, the word aedon means nightingale, trusted. Geoffrey Hartman, in "Evening Star and Evening poet, and poetry- these senses are completely interchangea­ Land," one of the best essays ever written on the nightingale, ble and can all be present at once (Williams 21). So too describes the "philomel moment" in English poetry as "the post­ Spenser, by addressing Ralegh as a nightingale, also means prophetic moment, when the theme of loss merges with that that he is a poet. The final couplet expresses Spenser's aspi­ of voice -when, in fact, a 'lost voice' becomes the subject or ration to follow in Ralegh's footsteps, to become a talented moving force of poetic song" (164). Hartman's essay is com­ singer of courtly songs: ''Yet till that thou thy Poeme wilt pelling, but one-sided in its emphasis upon "lost voice." make knowne, I Let thy faire Cinthias praises bee thus rudely What's missing in Hartman's argument is the positive range showne" (13-14). The line represents the young Spenser as a of emotion the nightingale calls forth; throughout literary "rude" singer, just setting out on his career, aspiring to be­ history, the nightingale always entailed both loss and recom­ come a poet with the talent, the panache of his precursor. pense. Sappho, for example, in a poetic fragment, evokes The theme of poetic vocation is interwoven with the desire to the nightingale's joyful aspect, calling it "the messager of write songs of praise for "Cinthia" (Elizabeth), figured here spring, the sweet voiced nightingale." Especially in Romantic as a moon-goddess. Although conventional in its handling of poetry, the nightingale connotes not only heartache and the nightingale motif, the poem plays upon many of its the­ grief, but also renewed vitality; not only autumnal melan­ matic possibilities: poetic vocation, erotic desire, and melan­ choly, but also springtime rejoicing. choly moonlight. Not only were the Classical poets fascinated by the After the Renaissance, with the return of Classical nightingale; the natural historian Pliny the Elder was in­ learning, and in defiance of natural history, the nightingale trigued by it and describes its song in meticulous detail (His­ reverted to being a female presence in poetry. Why is the toria Naturalis, Book 10, chapter 43). He states that each nightingale so persistently gendered as female? I believe this individual nightingale can sing more than one song, and that bird embodies an archetype that is transhistorical and largely they engage in singing contests. By implication, the bird's unconscious, and consequently more powerful than mere song is not merely generic; it is highly individualized, and empirical precision.
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